Queen Antonia of Jotunheim
by mermaid2bseeker
Summary: In which Tony Stark is a woman. Thanos is coming. Loki redeems himself. Yggdrasil is stabilized with a marrage in Asgard between King Loki of Jotunheim, prince of Asgard, and Antonia Stark, 'princess' of Midgard. a threeway alliance between the planets. It is a complicated tale and most of it isn't even written yet.
1. Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

* * *

Before. Before the Avengers. Before Iron Man. Before the cave. Before Stark Industries. Before the car accident. Before everything…

There was a little girl.

She wore frilly dresses, and had tea parties with all her dolls. She saw mother the most, but father would read her bedtime stories.

One day, mother got a cold, so father watched over her. He didn't want to play tea party, he was busy measuring the distances between buildings in his little town. There were lots of big books in his workshop, so she wasn't bored. There were lots of big words in those big books, but she knew where the dictionary was, and quickly learned all she could.

On the second day, mother was still sick, so once again, father watched her. She found diagrams and instructions, and used the dictionary again.

On the third day, father looked up from his work and caught her reaching for his small welding tool.

On the fourth day, she built her first circuit board, with his close supervision.

Father stopped calling her Antonia, she was now Tony. It was a fun game, seeing people's faces when they realized Tony Stark was a girl. They never believed her until she explained her work.

There was a whole world of things for her to build. She never played tea party again.

* * *

When she was sixteen, living alone at MIT, she built her first artificial friend. She slaved over his programming, giving him the closest thing she could to intuition and feelings. When she installed him in a robotic arm, it was a disaster. He always chose the wrong option. She named him Dummy.

Later, when she removed the intuition and feelings, Dummy2.0 won her an award. Nevertheless, he didn't feel right, so she restored his original programming. Uncle Obadiah said she was personifying her creations. Sentiment had no place in programming, and there was nothing wrong with tweaking something until it was perfect. Tony thought that was an easy way to charge people more money for newer and better versions. From that day, she never produced anything until she thought it was perfect.

She started drinking at her parents' funeral. She never stopped. Life looked so much better through an amber haze.

She spent her whole life being twice as fast, twice as smart, twice as good as her male opposites. Then she became CEO of Stark Industries, and…something changed. One day she woke up and she was the best. She was richer than Gates and Buffet; Stark Industries was at the top of the stock market. There was no farther to go, she was the best…

…and she just didn't care anymore. Her alcoholism became worse and with it comes sex and drugs.

* * *

Skip ahead some years.

Tony Stark wakes, cold and afraid, in a cave. She has an electromagnet resting above her breasts.

There's fear and captivity; guns and torture. The terrorists want her best weapon, so she builds one. The best weapon is one you only have to use once. The iron suit she builds only gets one use before it falls apart, that once was enough. She destroys their terrorist base and escapes.

Rhodey rescues her. Rhodey is always rescuing her from her craziest ideas; it's nice to keep the pattern. On the chopper ride to the American military base, she falls asleep curled up in his arms; safe for the first time in three months.

She sleeps through the landing, and the debriefing. She only wakes when her captors are removing the new arc reactor in her chest. She breaks the man's hand before she realizes it was only a scientist, measuring the energy output. They want to make sure she's not radioactive or something idiotic like that. Like she would put something harmful into herself.

Rhodey is there to calm everything down. He yells at the guy for sneaking up on her.

When she orders a steak, they give her a half-portion and broccoli instead of potatoes. There's no knife, so she eats it like a corndog, skewered on the end of her fork, ripping pieces off with her teeth. She thinks that's how she'll eat steak at home from now on, with one hand free to work on her projects.

The next day, they fly her to a hospital in Germany. It's a disaster. She has to explain over and over to so many different military commanders that: no, she did not build her captors anything. Yes, she was tortured. No, it would not "be alright" if she gave in to the demands. _Everyone breaks, miss, they had you for three months. No one blames you. We just need to know what you gave them._She rolls her eyes so often she gets a headache. She built the suit, and the arc reactor, and that was it.

She is surrounded by idiots. And Rhodey. But he still works for the idiots, so he counts as one. Mostly.

Is it because she's a woman and they're laboring under the impression she's a delicate flower or because terrorists had her for three months and this is how they'd treat anyone who had been in enemy hands for so long? No one gives her an answer when she asks. She's not sure which answer she'd prefer.

The day before she is due home, some yahoo colonel from one of those middle states claims she's performed an illegal human experiment and will be detained until the illegality of her actions can be determined. The entire room goes quiet at that announcement. The whole speech sounds well quoted, especially since he's the type of man who calls the IT department asking for them to download the internet onto his computer; all bajillion gigabytes of it. It's probably Justin Hammer. It sounds like Hammer Tech got the stupidest colonel to throw his weight around, just so they could eliminate her as the competition. Tony, having enough of bullshit, spends the next half hour verbally castrating Colonel Idiot.

The next day, she flies home.

She imagines Justin Hammer destroying something in a fit of rage, then slipping and impaling his head on a garden rake, because he is definitely dumb enough to have a garden rake in his workshop. The doctors give her the good drugs that day.

* * *

The first thing Tony does (after the cheeseburger, and "ugh, Happy, did it have to be Burger King?") is close the weapons production sector of Stark Industries. Rhodey is pissed. Obie and Pepper both think she's lost her mind due to her harrowing imprisonment. They think she has no idea of the consequences of this action. Of course she does. There's the stock prices, and the breach-of-contract clauses with the military for starters. She knows the company is going to loose a lot of money and never be as popular as it once was. But, maybe that's a good thing. Stark Industries was the best of the best for years and what did it bring? A hole in her chest, near cirrhosis of the liver, and her weapons killing innocent people in countries she doesn't even know the names of. Accountability can only be a good thing after that.

Her first suit, out of necessity, was a barely-shaped hulking monstrosity. Now she has the tools and the time to make something elegant and powerful. For a few hours, she plays with a feminized design. But, there's no way to make breasts and an hourglass figure work with the schematics and it looks terrible so she goes with the masculine designs.

Her hair's a problem. If she ties it back, it presses against the back of her helmet, and limits her head moving for the display interface. If she keeps it down, it flops around and tangles around her neck. She spends two hours re-coding a robotic arm (not Dummy, never Dummy) and has JARVIS slave it so he can give her a haircut. Years and years of growth fall to the workshop floor and she's left with a pixie style. On her next public appearance, the tabloids go crazy trying to explain why she did it, they get interviews with "experts" and "close friends", most of them agree it's PTSD and Tony is trying to regain control of her life.

It's not her life anymore, it's her atonement. She has reinvented herself. She is going to make sure her inventions never hurt an innocent person, ever again.

* * *

Skip forward.

Tony kills Obadiah Stane.

To be fair, he was trying to kill her first, and Pepper, and maybe start World War Three, who knows? She couldn't really pay attention to his villain monologuing, since at the time, Obadiah was removing her arc reactor and she was in a lot of pain. Obadiah uses her designs and her inventions to hurt innocent people, so she kills him, using the very technology he so covets. The arc blast radiates him to a quick and painful death and she's not sorry. Well, she's sorry for the damage caused to Stark Industries' arc reactor, it was a popular tour destination…

* * *

Now, the reporters clamor, the bulbs flash and she stares through the camera lenses to everyone watching.

"The truth is…I am Iron Man."

* * *

But, all this was just the prologue. The Hero's Journey from billionaire playgirl Tony Stark to superhero Iron Man Tony Stark.

Here is where it gets interesting...


	2. Chapter 2

IN WHICH THE EVENTS OF THE MOVIE ARE JUST THAT SLIGHTEST BIT DIFFERENT

* * *

Nick Fury does not like Tony Stark. The feeling is mutual. He thinks she is a self-destructive hot-head. She thinks he needs to remove the stick up his eye-patch. Tony Stark is not part of the Avengers Initiative. Iron Man is. There is a distinction. One, which Nick Fury never fails to mention in her presence. All this means, when Captain America joins them for their first soirée, he fights alongside Iron Man and none of the team correct him when he refers to her as "Mr Stark," because Loki is subjugating the good people of Germany and there's really no time for social adjustment.

It would have been helpful if someone had introduced Captain America to Tony Stark at the beginning, or if Tony Stark had arrived with her faceplate up. Instead, she flies in, blares music, and helps kick Loki's ass, all with her voice modulators and armor on.

The fight is over, and she's standing in the quinjet, securing Loki for flight. She has her helmet off, because no matter how much she tweaks the system, it always gets a bit too hot in her suit during fights. Captain America enters, after assuring the German people that all is well, and stops. He stares.

"Wait, you're a woman?"

Loki snorts.

"Shut it, you," she points at the god warningly. Tony turns to the captain. "You have a problem with that?" It doesn't matter that Steve sounded surprised when he said it, and not disgusted. She is still pissed at him for the assumption.

"No, I just…Iron _Man._"

The jet lifts off, and they head out of German airspace.

"I suppose you think Natasha kills her mates after sex, too."

He blushes. "What?"

"Perhaps she gives them a little death?" Loki's accent gives the innuendo just that little bit more impact.

Tony turns to their prisoner. "What did I say? Don't make me gag you."

His eyes travel from her head to her feet and back up again. She has the distinct impression he can see through her armor. "Please do."

"Wait," the captain butts in. "Are you flirting with her?"

"She subverts your realms expectations by dressing as a man and wielding the warriors touch. She is a fine specimen."

"That's inappropriate...and gross."

She snorts. "Like you'd know, Mr-90-year-old-virgin."

"You know, Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in."

"Yeah, there's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you. Also, you just ended a sentence with a preposition."

* * *

They're flying over the Black Forest when lightning strikes all around them. There's turbulence, a grim warning from the god of mischief, and then Thor steals their prisoner. Which is so not cool. The ensuing fight levels half the trees before Thor agrees that they're all evenly matched and lets them take Loki to the helicarrier.

This starts off a very long chain of events, culminating in Manhattan being terrorized by evil aliens and her almost dying from a nuclear explosion in space.

The good news; Loki is defeated and humanity is saved.

The bad news, Agent Coulson is dead.

After such a long day, or has it been days?, Tony falls asleep in the shwarma shop, her head resting against Thor's ginormous bicep. Even after a long battle, he smells like pine trees, it's nice; she should market that.

The next day, Thor takes Loki to Asgard and the Avengers scatter in the wind, to wait for the public outcry to die down. Tony drives off with her new best friend, Bruce.


	3. Chapter 3

IN WHICH TONY AND STEVE STILL DONT MIX, THERE MAY OR MAY NOT BE A SEXROBOT AND LOKI RETURNS TO LEARN THE MEANING OF O'HANA

* * *

Tony and Steve's first social interaction is not so great either.

* * *

Stark Tower has been repurposed, it is now Avengers Tower, instead of offices and a penthouse, its apartments and a penthouse. Everyone of the team gets his or her own place to live-even Fury, who Tony placed as far away from her penthouse as possible. He would have gone in the basement, but that was a subway entrance.

* * *

Tony is in her workshop working on soldering a very important connection for a very important project. Her hover car is still a thing of the future, but she's confident she can get one into production in two years. It's too much trouble to build a car from scratch-that's a lie, it's no trouble at all, she just doesn't want to waste time reinventing the wheel, so to speak—so she's just patched together a repulsor system to the car's preexisting internal combustion engine. The automotive industry would be more receptive to new technology that doesn't require a complete overhaul of their factories.

She shuts off the oxy-acetylene torch and sends power through the repulsors. The z-car hovers for a second before shooting up ("Shit!") and ripping itself from the power supply.

Someone yanks her back, hard, and the car falls where she was once standing.

"Was it supposed to do that?" Steve asks from where he's laying over her. He helps her up, and they survey the damage.

"Not really." She kicks a piece of broken piping.

"Maybe hover cars just aren't supposed to happen."

She's typing on her holo-interface, already running a computer program to find the fault. "How do you mean?"

"Well, I was there when Howard first tried, it didn't work then either."

This is not something she wants to hear. For much of her life, she has been "Tony Stark, Howard's young protégé", "Tony Stark, filling in her father's shoes", "Tony Stark, taking over her father's company". Even as Iron Man, she is dependent on her father. Her father designed the Arc Reactor, Tony just finished it. Her father discovered vibranium, Tony just synthesized it. There is no bit of her life that is not connected to Howard Stark, and she does not like being reminded of it.

"What do you want, Cap-sicle?" It's a crappy insult, but it's the only one she has to remind him of things he'd rather not think about, as he just did to her.

His face screws up like a sad little puppy but the expression is quickly gone. "I keep destroying the gym equipment, and Fury said you could build me something like you did for Thor."

"Oh, well. If Fury says so…"

The sarcasm goes over Steve's head. He stands there for a few seconds. "Was that a yes?"

She glares. "Get out."

He leaves.

* * *

The next week, Steve gets new gym equipment. (There's a post-it on the punching bag: _Don't hold back_) Tony Stark may hate Steve Rogers, but Iron Man might need Captain America's help in a battle one day and it's no good fighting without good training.

Being a superhero is very disassociative.

* * *

Bruce goes to Southern Sudan. Bruce comes back from Southern Sudan. There may or may not have been a giant green devil involved. No one involved is saying anything.

He moves into his tower apartment.

_("Try not to collapse anything in a ragefit. You're living above Fury."_

_"__Thanks for that."_

_"__Eh, no worries, he's never home. So if you wanna break the floor, just avoid the support beams."_

_"__Are you sure you want me living here?"_

_"__I have a construction company on retainer."_

_"__That doesn't make me feel better."_

_"__Whatever, want a blueberry?")_

* * *

The Avenger's second major battle goes like this:

Von Doom shows up, and spells all the statues in New York to life. This is not fair for two reasons, first: Von Doom is a technomage and has no business using magic, and second: the senators only recently stopped calling for the Avenger's heads on plates. The life-size statues are easily defeated; Hulk _smashes_ them to bits. The cherubs are left to Black Widow and Hawkeye, who _shoot_ them to bits. Captain America and Iron Man get the big statues, like Liberty. There's a bad joke in there somewhere, Tony is sure of it. The Captain is quite hesitant to destroy such a shining beacon of American hope, and Tony is just pissed because Liberty isn't even in New York, it's in New Jersey. However, the statue _is_ rampaging down Wall Street, smashing building fronts with her torch and terrorizing the population, so Iron Man takes it down with a repulsor blast.

The next day, Fury is angry with Tony because the President of the Unites States has to apologize to the President of France for destroying their gift, even though it was killing people at the time.

* * *

J. Jonah Jameson runs a story claiming the Avengers are slavery-loving Nazis. Steve writes a strongly worded letter to the editorial department, which gets twisted into something sinister because JJJ is an evil editor-in-chief

Tony sends a computer virus to the Bugle's printers, the next few issues are nothing but excerpts from 4chan. Nobody makes Steve look like a kicked puppy and gets away with it.

* * *

A week later, Tony is sulking in her home in Malibu. Fury banned her from Avenger's functions for three weeks in punishment for Destroying a National Monument that was Killing People (the paperwork actually says Disobeying Commanding Officer, but only because Captain America couldn't decide what to do). Fury has gone so far as to confine her to the state of California, just to get around any loopholes she may find during those three weeks.

In her boredom, she decides to build JARVIS a body.

_"__Are you sure this is a wise decision?"_ JARVIS asks after she uploads some schematics to his server for approval.

Tony looks up at the workshop ceiling but the epic scorch mark from last time she attempted this has long been repaired. "I think I know what went wrong last time."

_"As do I, Miss Stark, and it is not an experience I wish to repeat."_

"Eh, you're such a worry-wort."

She builds an endoskeleton from the same lightweight alloy the suitcase-Iron-Man-suit is made of. The skin and hair comes from a sex-doll supplier. It's a sad commentary that sex-shops have the most realistic skin substitute, but she's not going to complain. Of course, the next few days are spend imbedding thousands of sensors into the artificial skin so JARVIS can feel the environment around him.

"JARVIS, patent this for me, would you? It's gonna revolutionize prosthetics."

_"__Yes, Miss Stark."_

Tony layers the skin over the endoskeleton, and stops.

"This was a bad idea."

_"__Finally, we agree."_

Tony stares at the incomplete body, most of the metal is uncovered, but the face is in place, and she realizes she spent two weeks building a fake person. Her only reliable friends may be machines, but this is going too far into the Uncanny Valley, she feels squicky. Also, it kinda looks like the Terminator, if played by Steve Rogers.

* * *

The body gets destroyed. Tony spends the rest of her punishment drunk off her head.

* * *

When she comes back to New York, she tries to avoid Steve. She really doesn't want him knowing she almost built a Steve-doll with sex shop supplies. That is just too crazy even for her. If Tony were less hungover, she would have a better avoidance plan then just hiding in an oversized hoodie with aviator sunglasses on and going the opposite way every time she sees him. This does not work.

But only because the Avengers are called to assemble in Puente Antiguo. The bifrost alarm has activated.

The team gathers on the tower rooftop, awaiting pickup from a quinjet.

Tony's suit interface lights up with a call. The area code places it in New Mexico.

"TONY," Thor's voice booms from the tiny speaker. It echoes in her helmet.

"Thor! Not so loud."

"Please tell the others that I and Loki have returned."

"…_and Loki_?"

"Yes, he has received his punishment and is returned for penance."

"Right. Where are you guys?"

"At Darcy's, she is a most gracious host."

"Uh-huh."

* * *

The flight from New York to New Mexico takes four hours and by the time they arrive, Thor is midway through _Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers._

"Have you seen this epic?" He asks when they arrive. "This is truly a worthy tale of warriors' courage."

None of the team are interested in Thor or the movie. They're all busy staring at Loki. He resolutely has his back to them as he sits at the kitchen island, watching Darcy slice a staggering variety of fruits.

She places them in a blender and purees them, pours it into a glass, and gives it to Loki with a bendy straw.

They stare as he sucks up the drink, pauses, and nods. Darcy grins.

"Brother," Thor calls, "come watch with me."

Loki stands-Hawkeye's arrow twitches in its notch—and walks past them, never even glancing their way.

There are six black stitches holding his mouth shut.

* * *

Loki's punishment is to have his mouth sewn shut and only access his magics for good purposes for a year. "To learn the value of truth and goodness," Thor explains the Allfather's logic.

Tony sees many loopholes in this punishment; and if she can see them, so can Loki. This becomes apparent when Loki commandeers Darcy's laptop, ("Just don't look at porn, geez") and spends the flight to the helicarrier learning sign language.

Thor thinks this is a good thing, for Loki can now communicate.

Everyone else thinks this is a bad thing, for Loki can now communicate.

* * *

They draw straws, and Clint gets to explain Loki to Nick Fury. Steve quickly trades places with him, for obvious reasons. Tony watches the meeting through the security cameras. It's quite nice to have that one-eyed glare focused on someone other than her.

In the end, nothing is decided, other than Loki is too powerful to contain, so there's nothing they can do. If he going to be good, they'll let him, and if he's going to be evil, they'll stop him.

Tony thinks this is hilarious. She is no longer the black sheep of the Avengers.

* * *

She assigns Loki an apartment next to Thor's and gives him a wireless keyboard.

"It's dedicated to JARVIS's user interface." Loki stares at her, it's kinda creepy. "Just type what you want to say and he'll understand. Usually, it's voice commands, but since you can't talk…you know what, you're kinda creepy, oh don't grin that's even worse. Go be creepy elsewhere."

Tony quickly learns that giving Loki guest privileges for JARVIS was a bad idea. Giving Loki any access at all was a bad idea.

Loki steals Tony's corporate credit card information (well, one of them anyways) and spends his nights watching infomercials, and buying knife sets online. Lots of knife sets. Every day there's a delivery of knives, and every night there's a thunk as another knife is thrown into the wall after failing to cut his stitches.

Thor says it's merely a phase, and once Loki has accepted his situation, he will be more sociable.

* * *

On a Thursday Thor commandeers one of Tony's televisions. Loki sits next to him, being sociable, and magicking a new plate of PopTarts every time Thor finishes the previous plate. Together they watch a wide selection of movies. Everything is going well; none of the team makes thinly-veiled death threats towards Loki and he doesn't call anyone names in sign language, until the end of _Lilo and Stitch_; Loki vanishes in a puff of green smoke. He doesn't come back.

* * *

On Friday, Thor has a tummy ache of godly proportions.


	4. Chapter 4

IN WHICH TONY IS KIDNAPPED, TONY IS RESCUED, PHONE SEX DOES NOT HAPPEN, ALSO JARVIS HAS HIS OWN STITCH AND BITCH CLUB

* * *

There is some sort of tentacle creature destroying New York

Iron Man flies through the air and crashes into the side of the Chrysler Building. This is not a pilot error. The giant octo-mecha-creature is rampaging through Manhattan, and its swatting the Avengers left, right, and center.

The suit's autopilot engages enough to stop her from crashing through the windows _into_ the building, but Tony still hits hard enough to smack her head on the back of her helmet and she's out.

* * *

She wakes up in a well-lit room. Her suit is gone, but she's still wearing the conductive body armor she wears under the suit. There's a bed, toilet and sink, and a six-pack of toilet paper in the corner. There's no door, just a door-shaped opening, and a hallway beyond. It's quickly made apparent why her prison needs no door. Her arc reactor is missing, and a crude electromagnet has been inserted, it plugs into an outlet near the bed. The lead is long enough to reach the sink and toilet, but not the exit. As psychological messaging goes, this is clear. She is free to leave at any time, but her physical limitations stop her. She's not fighting her captors; she's fighting herself.

She considers this a bunch of bullshit.

There's a camera in the corner, she can reach it if she stands on her tiptoes on the bed. It's a black bowl set into the ceiling and she can't pry it out. Still, she's not gonna let anyone watch her pee, so she wets a wad of toilet paper and smoothes it over the camera.

About five minutes later, clanking steps approach and Doc Ock squeezes himself into her room. He looms over her, his higher tentacles scraping the ceiling.

"You will build me weapons of mass destruction." That's not what he really says. In reality, there's lot of eight-armed gesturing; there's posturing and threats. He tells her his plans for world domination and slams her against the wall for her smart-mouthed reply.

"Okay." Again, this is not what's really said. She hems and she haws, she hides behind the defense that she is an Avenger, she just can't go around helping the villains. In the end, she agrees because if DocOck wants her to build him weapons, he's going to have to give her access to tools and technologies.

Doc Ock is more clever than Tony thinks, which to be fair, is not that hard. He gives her blank notebooks and pens and tells her to "design first, try to escape later". One of his arms, quite menacingly, wipes away the toilet paper from the camera.

"Don't do that again."

* * *

A few hours later, a faceless minion (literally, he only has eyes) brings a tray of food into her cell. It's McDonalds. Tony spends time doodling DocOck standing in the drive-thru and yelling at the cashier because "my arms count as a motorized vehicle!" She's angled herself facing the camera, so it sees her working, but not the work itself.

She stands and stretches. She sits the other way, so the camera sees her work but not her face and spends ten minutes writing the equations needed for a Jericho missile to reach the moon…that's mass destruction, isn't it? Of course, it's also not anything any junior physicist couldn't do.

"Heimdall?" she calls out hesitantly. She may be used to talking to her ceiling, but her ceiling usually talks back, even if just to say _"I wouldn't recommend this course of action, Miss Stark."_

"Um, I don't know if you can hear me, but you're supposed to be this all-seeing god, right?"

Still no answer.

"I don't suppose you could give me a bifrost opening or something, take me home?

Nothing happens.

"I didn't think so." She sighs and spends time designing an airplane that turns into a submarine.

* * *

Tony must have fallen asleep because she wakes to a crick in her neck and thunder echoing through the hall. The lights flicker and then fade. The power is out, and-

"Oh, shit." The whine of the electromagnet fades as its charge is depleted. Hundreds of tiny shrapnel start very painfully making their way towards her heart.

She sits-collapses-on the bed. This is what a log must feel like as it's cut by a rotary saw.

Vaguely, she hears shouting from down the hall. There's no light so she can't tell what's going on but she hears a roaring that sounds like Hulk, and then she blacks out.

* * *

The next time she opens her eyes, she is cradled in Captain America's arms, and they're following Loki. His staff glows with enough blue light to show the way.

* * *

She wakes on the quinjet, balanced in Loki's lap. Her pain is receding, slightly, but there's no familiar glow of the arc reactor. Doc Ock's crappy replacement is still there; she follows the lead and sees Thor is holding the plug by the prongs.

The air is slightly charged, enough for the hairs on her arm to be standing. "There's no way that should work," she groans.

The God of Thunder could certainly provide usable electricity, but the voltage should be way too much. That plug is rated for 120 volts, lightning is millions of volts; some transformers would need to be wired in.

There's a pinch in her shoulder and Bruce walks into view; he's wearing drawstring pants and nothing else.

"Aw, did you ruin your clothes?" He really doesn't like it when people talk about 'the other guy' so Tony once came up with a euphemism. Nobody else thought it was funny; she might have been drunk at the time.

"Just a little bit." He shines a penlight in her eyes.

She smacks the light away. "You're not a doctor-doctor"

"Maybe I like seeing your eyes?"

"Pfft."

She feels Loki move under her.

Bruce grins. "How do you feel?"

The pain is completely gone. "Fuzzy…wait did you drug me?"

"You weren't looking too good."

"I always look good. I'm shiny Iron Man." She built the suit to be noticeable, and imposing, something she—at 5'6"—is not. There's something nagging in her brain, "where's my notebook?"

Steve looks down to her. "What notebook?"

"The one, it has equations…important…stuff… he wanted weapons…arms were scary…"

Hawkeye chimes in from somewhere. "Please tell me we didn't give Doc Ock things from Tony's brain."

The medicine drags her to sleep.

She wakes up in the helicarrier infirmary. Someone has replaced her missing arc reactor. There's a teddy bear on the side table, and a bouquet from Steve.

* * *

Days pass and there is no further activity from DocOck, so the Avengers go off high alert. Thor and Loki go to New Mexico to spend time with Jane and Erik. Clint is off to who knows where, and Natasha goes to L.A. to continue being Pepper's 'P.A'.

Tony finds herself bored. Previous experience has taught her, this is never a good thing.

"JARVIS, call Rhodey."

_"__Calling Colonel Rhodes."_

She takes a sip of her Monster energy drink. She's already jittery as hell, but she needs to stay awake and away from the nightmares.

Rhodey answers after three rings. "Tony, it's 3a.m. what do you want?" His voice pipes in through the soundsystem.

"Really? I thought you were ahead by more than that?"

"Tony."

She sighs. "Let's have sex." They've never had sex, and she feels like she needs a new experience.

There's a pregnant pause. "I'm on the other side of the world."

"Tell me where and I'll be there in a few hours." She'd have to follow a high orbit flight trajectory, but she could reach an antipode in a few hours.

JARVIS quickly derails that idea, as he says aloud what she already realized._"None of your suits are spaceworthy, Miss Stark."_

"Spoilsport."

_"__I live to serve."_

"It doesn't matter, because I'm not having sex with you, ever."

"Why not?"

"My mother always told me 'never stick your dick in crazy'."

Tony tries to imagine Mama Rhodes ever saying such a thing. "She did not!"

"She would if she had ever met you. Listen, I have to go, I've got maneuvers in the morning and I want to sleep."

"I'll see you when you get back?"

"Definitely." He hangs up.

* * *

Tony spends the next few days locked up in her workshop in the Avenger's tower. Creating a space worthy suit is hard, every single join has to combine to form an airtight seal in whichever position she moves her limbs. The difficulty is compounded by the vacuum chamber she ordered still not having arrived.

She keeps going back to NASA's spacesuit blueprints, the real ones, not those floating around the internet. JARVIS had to hack into NASA's secured archives, and place a work order for a tech to scan the schematics, just so he could send a copy to Tony's secure server, all because NASA still keeps Gemini and Apollo era documents as hard copy.

Tony really _really_ doesn't like NASA's solution to the elbow and knee join.

_"__Miss Stark, this is your four-day bath alert."_

"Yeah, yeah. In a minute."

All the computers freeze. No matter what she types, her workstation is non-responsive.

"JARVIS!"

She remembers Pepper creating the bath alert after Tony once spent an impressive two week in her workshop, only coming up for food (she had a half-bath near the eyewash station). Every four days, if she's been working non-stop, JARVIS freezes all her computers until after she's taken a bath, with soap, and washed her hair.

It's creepy how aware she's made him, but, wait…

"That protocol is only installed in the JARVIS in Malibu."

"_The various versions of myself share information when it pertains to your wellbeing._"

"You gossip about me?"

"_We share pertinent information about you."_

"Aw, I love you too."

She leaves for a bath.


	5. Chapter 5

IN WHICH A MEMORY IS DESTROYED, TONY GETS DRUNK, LOKI HAS A CONVERSATION, AND SOMEONE IS STILL NEEDED

* * *

Steve spends weeks avoiding her. He is much more successful at avoiding than she was. Eventually, Tony ambushes him in the gym.

"You haven't given me this cold a shoulder since we met, what's wrong?" Let it never be said she pussyfoots around an issue.

"I almost killed you."

She thinks back, there was that one sparring session, but it wasn't that close. "No you didn't."

"I really, really did." He grimaces. "I told Clint to cut the power to DocOck's facility before we entered."

_Ah_. "…and that was the right call. You needed the tactical advantage.

"There is no way in which that was the right call. _Tactically_, I didn't have all the information and I almost killed someone I-need for this team."

"That's not what you were going to say."

"Forget it." He pushes past her, and rushes out of the room.

She rushes after him. "What were you going to say?" He's way ahead of her, and she has to run to catch up.

She grabs his wrist, "Stop. Tell me."

He whirls toward her. "I like you! A lot. And it's confusing, sometimes."

"Why?"

"I don't know if I like you because of you or because you remind me of…" he breaks off, looking away.

"…Howard." She finishes for him with a sneer.

He nods. "And Peggy…and Bucky."

She really has no idea what to say in this instance, and usually she can trust her mouth to get her out of sticky situations. "Wow…that sucks." _That was lame._

"Yeah." He sighs. "Can I ask you something?"

Anything to get out of this sadness. "Sure."

"Why do you not like me?

Anything but that. "I don't—" she scrubs her hair in frustration. "I don't _not like you_. I just don't have…good associations…about you in my head."

Steve stares at her in confusion.

_This is not something I want to be talking about._ "Dad—Howard-he was always talking about you…going off to search for you. Sometimes—most of the time—it felt like he loved your memory more than he loved me. He spent the rest of his life looking for you and never saw me."

She can see the denial forming in his face.

"When you knew him he was a twenty-something playboy…when he had me he was an old man, plenty of time to change."

Something shatters in Steve's expression.

"Sorry. You did ask."

* * *

"Does ceiling-Jarvis watch me pleasure myself?" Thor's voice seems to echo off the surrounding buildings. He climbs up the ladder to Bruce's rooftop zen rock garden, where Tony is watching the wind shape the sand.

Tony stares at the glass in her hand. It was only her fourth scotch, way too soon for drunken hallucinations. "What?"

Thor sits next to her on the bench, his red cape fluttering. "I asked—"

"Yeah I heard you; I think the whole city heard you."

"Loki showed me a computer site dedicated to the exploits of a creature called Ceiling Cat, whose favorite activities are-"

"I knew giving Loki a computer was a bad idea."

"—apparently there is even a Ceiling Cat Bible. Do many people on Midgard worship such a beast?"

Tony drains her glass. "I am too sober for this. Jarvis does not watch you masturbate…unless you ask him to. Ceiling Cat is fictitious and you shouldn't believe everything you see online…Or on tv. Or in the newspapers. In fact, if you're ever not sure, ask someone…Not Loki. Or Steve. Or Clint…you know what, ask Jarvis."

A very stiff updraft blows her sideways, and she drunkenly flails onto Thor's lap. She settles more comfortably. "How do you always smell nice?"

Thor looks down at her. "I bathe regularly."

_That's the funniest thing ever_. She laughs hysterically. "I need to market this; I could have the next Axe body spray. Would you come down to my lab so I can sample you?"

"While I am flattered by your interest, you should know my heart belongs to another."

She blinks, "no-no-no-no-no pfft. I'm not flirting, I'm doing science. Ask Bruce, we do science all the time." She giggles. "Sometimes twice in one night."

Tony falls asleep giggling to herself.

* * *

The morning brings with it the hangover from hell.

Tony rolls over in the sheets, and pulls a pillow over her head. It takes her only a few breaths to know she isn't in her bed. The sheets smell like Bruce, all lavender and chai tea like. She opens her eyes and sees the extra-reinforced walls of Bruce's bedroom.

"You up finally?" Bruce asks as he enters the room.

"Ugh."

"Here, hangover cure." He hands her a foul-looking liquid in a glass.

Having much experience with so-called 'hangover cures', Tony drinks it without looking—or smelling—too closely. It's slimy, and almost comes back up before she can swallow it down.

He takes the glass from her. "Do you want to tell me why Thor thinks we're dating?"

_Huh_ "Um?"

"He told me not to neglect you so much, lest you '_seek affection in another man's stable'_."

"God, I hope that was a euphemism."

"From the way Loki looked at Thor when he said it, I don't think so."

* * *

Later, Tony can't help herself. "You did it with a horse, really?"

Loki is sitting on the common room couch in front of the television, a StarkConsole controller in his hand. His avatar is slicing through a man on a horse. A tone sounds, as he completes another achievement. He pauses the game and sneers at her, as much as the stitches allow him.

_Chicken has been telling tales again,_ he signs.

Well, she did spend less time learning ASL then she did learning thermo-nuclear astrophysics, so she probably got that name wrong. "Chicken?"

_Thor, his helmet is feathered._

Tony grins, "which makes you…what? Goat?"

He snarls out his nose. _Cow_

"I don't know what kind of cows you have on Asgard, but you are definitely a goat here. Sorry." She makes her way to the kitchen. She hears him growl. "But that's cool, goats are awesome. They can live on mountains and scale impossible walls. They're tough and indomitable." She grabs a tumbler and pauses. "You want anything?" She turns to see his reply.

_Kiwis_

While she is turned away from his hands and focused on slicing the kiwis away from their husks, there is no conversation. For a few moments the only sounds are that of _Assassin's Creed_ and the blender. She pours the green liquid into a glass and adds a bendy straw. Then grabs her drink and returns and sits next to Loki.

_Why are you complimenting me?_He takes his drink. There's a gap in the stitches that's just wide enough for a straw to pass through. Tony doesn't know whether that's by design or accident; she hopes it's by design.

"Why shouldn't I compliment you?"

Loki shows his crazy overlord grin; the effect is greatly enhanced by the black stitching stretching up and down.

"Stop that, you'll tear something." She takes a sip of her drink, she is not drunk enough for this. "Please, please don't take this the wrong way. But you're not an evil man; you're a broken man that's done evil things. There's a big difference."

He stares at her for a long moment. Then gently places his glass on the sidetable.

Then he throws the controller at her head. He storms out of the room.

"Yeah, that went well."

"Ya think?" Clint drops down from the ceiling.

She startles and sloshes her drink over her knees. "Jesus, where did you come from?"

He gestures. "You're bleeding a bit."

"Well, at least it wasn't a window this time."

* * *

That night, Tony dreams she is swimming under a frozen lake. It seems vital she reach the end of the lake and her destination, but the lake bottom is too interesting, it's Brooklyn, and the people don't seem concerned that they're milling about underwater. Yet she is in bed, she knows she is in bed and the bed is more important than the lake. But she is also talking, to whom she doesn't know.

A thought keeps cycling through her dream. "An evil man doesn't know he's evil, will never cry over what he's done, he will never want to be forgiven." She is positive that makes no sense, but it makes her sad and she wakes up crying.

* * *

Loki disappears for a few days. When he comes back, he is escorted by Fury and Maria Hill; escorted in handcuffs.

"We found him interfering in one of our secure areas," Fury nearly throws Loki into Thor's arms. "The agreement was for you to keep out of trouble," he tells Loki. "Don't make me change my mind."

After they leave, the Avengers quickly split into two groups: those who want to wait for Loki's explanation (Tony, Thor, and Steve) and those who want to do something less savory (Clint, Natasha). Bruce was in New Mexico

"Why brother," Thor is absolutely crushed. "You were doing so well."

"What were you doing there, what did you do?" Steve asks.

_Penance_ is all Loki will sign, no matter what they ask him. Eventually, they give up.

* * *

Later, Fury calls them all in for a meeting aboard the Helicarrier and they find out what Loki was doing there.

"A week ago, Mr. Odinson—"

Loki growls.

"—Mr. Laufeyson—"

Loki growls again.

"—_Loki_…broke into the morgue and now Phil Coulson is no longer dead."

The group erupts in questions and shouts, but Loki stares resolutely at the desk ignoring any queries sent his way.

After a few moments of this, Fury says, "if everyone is done shouting, you can visit him in the infirmary."

Everyone quickly bugs out down the hall. Tony lets herself fall back to walk with Loki who trails the group. She just stares at him. He must feel the power of her stare, because he looks up at her.

_Penance_? She signs to him, her motions crude and jittery.

_Yes._

_How?_

_My daughter is Queen of the Dead. I traded a favor._

_Big favor?_

_Yes._

_Why?_

_He is going to be needed soon._

A chill goes down Tony's spine at that. "What do you mean?" The others look back to them in confusion.

But Loki doesn't answer her.


	6. Chapter 6

IN WHICH THE AUTHOR CHANGES WRITING STYLES, PHIL IS PISSED, A WILD FROST GIANT APPEARS, AND LOKI EXPOSITS

* * *

Phil Coulson is perfectly fine for having been in a morgue drawer for five months. He's absolutely furious at Fury—those cards were _vintage_ and now they're stained with _blood_, but overall he's pleased with how the Avengers have melded into a team. He doesn't even bat an eyelash at Loki being part of the team, _must be used to evil heel-face turns_ thinks Tony, glancing at Natasha.

* * *

Three days after Phil's resurrection, the Avenger's '-days since last attack' calendar gets reset, breaking the longest streak they'd ever had. In the 57 days since the last attack, Stark Industries stock jumped up with their entry into the medical sector, especially when Tony gathered a press conference offering the neural prosthesis free to veterans; also Bruce may or may not have gotten a girlfriend, he refuses to say, but what other reason would he have to stay in New Mexico for so long?

Tuesday morning dawns grey and rainy. Thor is fascinated by the updraft and so flies across to the Chrysler building to watch the rain fall up. This does not please the Mayor of New York, who makes a very angry phone call to Avengers Tower, complaining of how the last time Thor stood on the spire, they had to call in every glazier in the state, they _just finished installing the last pane, if he makes a single crack you are going to be held personally responsible._ A (very large) donation to the school system ends that call.

Tony spends the morning doing nothing. She floats on her inflatable raft in her indoor swimming pool and because she is in a strangely altruistic mood, she uses her holo-interface to personally answer her emails—instead of having her new P.A. what's-his-face (Virgil—Terrance—Derek—some SOHO hipster who spends his paychecks on ridiculous scarves) personally answer them for her.

At two in the afternoon, the Avengers Assemble Alarm blares throughout the tower. SHIELD created a phone line for citizens to call when in need of the Avengers (there are an unknown number of dispatchers dedicated to weeding out the crank calls and the little children asking for Captain America or Iron Man to _please rescue my cat out of the tree_, and for Hulk to _please smash the bullies at my school, they're so mean_). There was even a tv commercial, Captain America telling the world, "if you're ever in trouble, call triple-A" (The initials were no accident. Tony had to buy the name off the auto assistance company, they weren't happy until she named a higher figure, then they were very happy.)

Tony arrives in the meeting room soaking wet and in a bikini. She can see Steve trying not to stare, but her cleavage is highlighted by the glow of her arc reactor so it's impossible to miss. Also, bathing suits were a lot different back in his day.

"Stark, cover up before Rogers has a heart attack." Fury commands from his image on the video screen.

Steve blushes furiously. "I-I-wasn't."

"You just want to draw me like one of your French girls." She's about to leave for a towel, but Loki hands her his cape. "Thanks." She wraps it around herself and sits next to him.

"Draw you like what?"

"I GET IT!" Thor booms in excitement. "Jane showed me the sad tale of the Titantic many weeks ago,"

Fury's one eye rolls. "Right, if we can move on."

Natasha arrives in yoga gear; she sits next to Steve.

"Where's Barton?" Fury asks.

"Up here."

"Right, lets begin."

Images flash on screen of a figure on a rampage. Satellite footage and cell phone images combine to show a monstrously large blue being without clothes stomping down an evacuated street, blasting cars and store fronts with blue energy. "This was taken in Albuquerque," Fury's voice narrates the footage. "Fortunately, a call to our New Mexico agents was enough to neutralize the situation," The footage changes to a different street, and Hulk completely destroying the creature with several savage blows. "We don't yet know what creature this was—"

"It is a frost giant," Thor interrupts. "They hail from Jotunheim. In the last war, Odin sealed it off from all realms save Asgard; to await a time when a peace could be brokered."

Fury's face appears as in inset in the corner. "So the question is, how did it get here and what did it want?"

There's something familiar about the energy weapon the frost giant is using. A tap on the table and a keyboard lights up in front of Tony, she uses it to manipulate the footage. "Isn't that the magic glow-stick of destiny?" she says.

The footage re-pixalates with a closer view. It is indeed Loki's former scepter being used to destroy downtown Albuquerque.

Tony feels Loki stiffen in his chair. She turns to him. "You know something." Everyone turns to him. Loki stares at his hands.

"Brother, if you know something…"

Loki sighs. He uses his keyboard to type. The words appear on the monitor, and Fury must get it as well, for Tony can see his eye passing left and right.

_Because I failed, Th-the being I was working with will try again with someone else. These incursions will continue until success is achieved._

"Success?" Steve asks.

_He wants to use the tesseract to control the universe._

"But the tesseract's in Asgard," he protests. "Right?"

Thor nods. "In the Allfather's vault."

Tony snorts. "Yeah, but does the Evil Overlord know that?"

_It was lost once before from Odin's vault, I am not the only one who knows of the secret paths between realms._

"My question is," Clint drops down from wherever he was perched (Tony long stopped being surprised at the spaces the Hawk could nest in) "why isn't Mr. Evil using one of his Chitauri to wield the scepter, instead of a third party?" He settles down next to Natasha.

"The Chitauri are mindless drones, they have no higher thoughts."/_The scepter requires intelligence,_the demi-gods answer together.

"Loki, can you stop these incursions into our realm?" Fury asks

He shakes his head. _Only Odin has the power to seal realms, and doing so would strand the inhabitants even from the bifrost, he does not do so lightly._

The meeting concludes on a sour note. Thor will go to Asgard to petition the Allfather for assistance that doesn't involve cutting off Earth from Yggdrasil, and the Avengers will stay on high alert, waiting for the next Scepter-wielding villain.

* * *

As the other Avengers scatter, Tony grabs Loki's arm and pulls him down the hall. She answers Steve's concerned glare with a lecherous grin. Steve huffs off in the opposite direction.

Loki yanks his arm out of her grasp, with a growl.

Tony can feel her ire rising. "Oh use your words."

_Why are you manhandling me?_

"There they are," she pushes him into one of the bank of elevators, and enters her private penthouse passcode. The elevator begins its ascent.

She isn't sure, but, "you're hiding something."

He raises an eyebrow as if to say, 'I'm hiding many things.'

"No, something important, something pertinent."

The doors open and she pushes him out, leads him to her bedroom. His look of innocent surprise would be quite amusing, if she didn't already know he had six children.

"Jarvis, privacy." If anyone asks where they are, Jarvis will tell them in the bedroom, and if anyone asks what they're doing, Jarvis will tell them it's private. Let everyone think what they will.

"_Privacy mode engaged."_

"Sit." She sits him on the bed. He rises up slightly and pulls a pink bra from under himself with a sly grin.

Tony takes it from him, "don't be cute," she throws it over her shoulder and crosses her arms. "You knew this would happen."

Loki shakes his head.

"…something _like this_ would happen. You brought Phil back, no one else. Just Phil, because he's _needed_?"

His face is inscrutable.

"What are you planning?"

Loki's hands are silent for a long time, then, _how big is Midgard's nuclear arsenal and can you make more?_

She opens her mouth to answer, then, stops. "About 30,000. Why?" Well, if it's a fact available on Google, then it's probably not a state secret.

He looks despondent. _It won't be enough._

She feels a chill fall over her.

"Enough?"

_If Thanos,_he finger spells the name, _comes to Midgard, your arsenal will not be enough._

"Wait, who's Tha—" he stands and slaps his hand over her mouth.

_If you say his name, he can see you._

Like Voldemort, she thinks. "So, who's he-who-must-not-be-named?"

_The Avatar of Death—_

"That's a wonderful way to start a sentence—no, no continue."

-_he is from a race of Eternals, and once nuked his own planet Titan because of a perceived slight._ His expression clearly shows he thought that action was idiotic in the extreme.

"Really?" Tony throws him a very complicated look, that clearly starts 'people in glass houses'.

Loki smiles deprecatingly. _He wants the omnipotence the tesseract can grant and will destroy anything in his path._

"So how do we stop him?"

_An alliance between realms. There are items within Odin's vault which will significantly improve Midgard's chances of victory if Thanos comes._

Tony shakes her head. "He's not just going to give those to you."

Loki falls back to sit on the bed. _He must believe I am sincere in my intentions. I must prove that I have changed_.

She sits next to him. Stares as his hands fidgit. "How?"

_I do not know._


	7. Chapter 7

IN WHICH LOKI DISAPPEARS, TONY FEELS BEREFT, AND MAY OR MAY NOT BE IN LOVE-TO BE DECIDED IN THE FLASHBACKS OF CHAPTER 8

* * *

Tony and Loki split from their clandestine meeting, her to find some clothes, and he to plan a way to convince Odin his second son was a changed man.

She very carefully restrains herself from asking, "Have you changed?"

* * *

Twenty-days later, Loki disappears. The technicians on the helicarrier keep sweeping the planet, but can find no trace of him, anywhere on the planet or surrounding space.

Phil, Clint and Natasha seem unsurprised, while Thor mopes around the tower stoic and listless.

Tony feels bereft. She tries to analyze the feeling; it's a gnawing in her chest, like she lost something precious and will regret it forever.

She has to know, so she asks Clint, "When you were mind-whammied, what did it feel like?"

The archer pauses in his practice, lowers the bow to the table. They're in the target range and Clint is learning the balance of the new arrow heads she gave him last week, each head offsets the shaft balance in a different way, so he has to learn how to compensate for each device.

He's quiet for a long moment, then, "It's—like a dream. It's only when you wake up that you know anything was strange." He pauses, looks away. "Everything I did felt right while I was doing it, it was only after…It was like he took everything—my experiences and personality—and twisted them so they made a different person. I wasn't me anymore."

Tony must be too thoughtful and quiet, because Clint asks, "Do you think he did something to one of us?"

She smiles one of her patented 'i-am-a-stable-influence-on-this-company-now-give-my-company-more-money' smiles. "No, just curious."

The smile seems to work better on him than it does during her investor meetings, because he shrugs and goes back to practice.

* * *

One day, Tony finds herself missing Loki's snark during breakfast. Usually she would wake (or still be up from the previous night) to the others chowing down, and Loki playing a video game. He seemed to be working his way through the Steam library as a way to pass the time between Assemble alerts.

She always found herself asking him if he wanted anything, and he would always sign back, '_solid food'_.

"Sorry, buddy," she would say, "still puree for you." And then she would blend him something that would taste delicious no matter its appearance.

The first few times they'd had this exchange, Steve looked at her consideringly, but after a while, it became routine, and no one gave her weird looks anymore.

It never occurred to her until now, that no one else cared if Loki ate; not even Thor who claimed to love him, offered to make Loki anything. According to the Norse myths (which everyone had checked upon seeing Loki's mouth-stitches) the dwarves had once sewed his mouth shut in punishment, so it was not a novel experience for the brothers; obviously Loki had survived being unable to eat. Still, that was no excuse for being inconsiderate.

It also never occurred, until now, that no one else learned ASL to communicate with Loki; Thor could understand him because of the Allspeak, but everyone else seemed happy to talk _at _Loki and never comprehend his responses. When he wanted to be understood by the others he had to use his keyboard.

Feeling the others stare at her-Natasha glaring-Tony finally moves from her spot frozen at the kitchen entranceway. She grabs a day old Chinese takeout from the fridge, and nukes it for two minutes in the microwave. She can feel their stares following her and when she turns with her food, Natasha is right in front of her, looking into her eyes.

Tony almost drops her chicken-with-broccoli in shock. "Um, can I help you?"

"How are you feeling?" Natasha asks her.

"A little creeped out." She leans backwards. "There's a thing called personal space, have you heard of it?"

Natasha gives a little _hmm_ and goes back to the table to finish her grapefruit.

"O—_kay_." Tony makes sure to sit as far from Natasha as possible.

Everyone is still staring at her.

"You know what?" She stands abruptly, and everyone tenses slightly, "I'm eating away from all you crazy people." She takes her food and goes to her workshop.

* * *

After she's done eating, she feels in a very blah mood, so takes her private elevator down to the underground garage and spends a very relaxing few hours working on a 1936 Hot Rod she bought at auction (the bastard who owned it previously had inherited it from a grandfather and let it rot in a crappy storage container until the Feds got it in an asset seizure). The poor car was in terrible condition.

She's in the zone, Playlist 36 blaring through the speaker system and covered in grease and oil, when the music cuts off.

"Jarvis!" she admonishes, muscles straining to budge a rusted bolt attaching the engine block.

"Sorry, that was me," Bruce says, walking up next to her legs.

Tony slides out from under the car, and sits up on the board. "Hey, what's up?"

He fiddles with his glasses for a moment, "The others," he gestures out the door as if the rest of the team were outside (they're not, she can see through the glass walls) and not fifty stories above their heads. "They sent me to check on you—well, really, we drew straws…I lost."

"Check up on me? I'm fine," she stands and grabs a rag that's only slightly dirty as opposed to slightly clean. Wiping her hands and face only serves to spread the grease around, "well, I could use a shower, but—"

"—You said you loved Loki," he interrupts.

"Um?"

"At breakfast, you stared into space for a while, said "Holy crap, I love Loki," and got your food."

"Hence the staring."

"Hence the staring," he says nodding. "Are you okay?"

"Apparently, I'm in love with a super-villain, I'm just peachy."

"He hasn't been a villain for a while now," Bruce says in consolation.

"Or maybe he's just biding his time, in six months he gets all his magic back. You think he's still gonna be playing happy families with us when that happens?" A part of her felt uncharitable even as she said it, as if she knew it wasn't true but was saying it to force a reaction. She should have been saying it to Loki, but he had scampered off to god-knows-where—but not Thor, that's for sure—and denied her the opportunity to yell at him.

"We need to judge him on what he's done, not what he may do."

"…Everyone deserves a second chance?" she asks.

He smiles. "Something like that."

After Bruce leaves, Tony sits on the mouldy bench seat she'd removed from the car, and thinks.

_'You said you loved Loki.'_

Does she?


	8. Chapter 8

**A LARGER CHAPTER; IN WHICH THERE ARE MANY FLASHBACKS: A CERTAIN REPRODUCTIVE ORGAN CRIES, STARGAZING LEADS TO PHILOSOPHY, LOKI RETRIEVE TONY'S HEART, AND LOKI IS BLUE-DA-BA-DEE-DA-BA-DI**

* * *

Loki's first day back on Earth was quite hectic—for everyone except him. He was perfectly content to sit on the couch, sipping at the smoothie Darcy made him, while Steve and Clint argued with Thor in the kitchen.

Tony, who felt unneeded, removed her helmet and sat on the couch; the weight of her suit made the couch springs creak alarmingly.

Loki glanced sideways at her, then returned to watching _The Two Towers_ from where Thor had paused it to argue with the others.

Occasionally, words drifted over from the kitchen.

_"…can't expect us to…"_ that was Hawkeye.

_"…the Allfather has decreed…"_ that was Thor.

For a while, Tony and Loki sat there in silence, but Tony could no longer stop herself… "Don't those hurt?" she gestured to his stitches.

Loki looked at her like she was an imbecile, whether it was because _of course they hurt, idiot_ or because of _how can I answer with my mouth sewn shut, idiot_ she didn't know, but she understood the insult at least.

Her suit creaked as she shifted. "You know, I'm gonna get you some ice…"

He made an inquiring noise.

"For the pain, no?...Okay, never mind."

The movie continued. The kitchen argument continued. There was the sound of breaking crockery.

"Hey!" Darcy looked up from her laptop. She rose from her desk against the wall and stomped into the kitchen.

"NO BREAKING MY STUFF!" she yelled and she 'escorted' Steve, Clint, and Thor out the front door. "If you're going to argue, do it outside!"

Tony felt herself sigh. _Yeah, this is going to be fun._

Again, Loki made a noise.

"Just thinking how fun this is going to be. The whole family, living under one roof?"

He shrugged, insouciantly; or maybe she was projecting.

"This isn't going to work." She stood with a shifting of metal plates and checked to make sure Darcy was occupied with sweeping the remains of her plates off the kitchen floor.

Tony could feel the look Loki was giving her. "Don't look at me like that." She grabbed Darcy's laptop and brought it over to the couch. "I mean the communicating thing."

She sat and put the laptop on the table in front of Loki, minimized the web browser (_IE, really? _she shuddered.) and opened a text document…a problem immediately arose.

"Wait do you even know how to write English?"

He shrugged.

"You are not a lot of help."

He nodded proudly.

She sighed. "I guess you could always learn sign language."

* * *

During Loki's first weeks living with the Avengers, he hardly left his rooms. At first, everyone was horrified at the idea of the stitching—SHIELD's muzzle hadn't been a suggestion for permanence, for pete's sake—but neither Thor nor Loki seemed overly bothered with the unusual form of punishment. Well, Loki kept buying knife sets (ceramic, obsidian, ginko, diamond) to try to cut the threads, but that was to be expected. If he had been a model prisoner, they would have known something was wrong with him.

Stealing Tony's credit card was also not unexpected behavior, in fact after the first month, Tony had added Loki as an authorized user—his card said Loki Liesmith (it was the surname he typed into the form).

Loki had gotten an odd smile on his face when she presented him with a packet of identification, all procured without SHIELD (fore-)knowledge. Fury had eventually agreed that having Loki be an identified consultant was a lot easier on the paperwork.

After four weeks of talking at Loki, Tony had decided to learn American Sign Language so that she could understand when Loki signed back.

The first time she used her new knowledge was after Natasha had made a not-so-thinly-veiled comment and Loki made a sign with a sneer.

"Wait—crying vagina?"

Loki turned his head to her so fast she thought he heard his neck crack.

_You can understand me._

She nodded, grinning. "Now I can."

Steve raised an eyebrow (this was back when the Avengers used a buddy system when in the same room with Loki). "When did you learn sign language?"

"Last night." She hopped over the back of the couch to sit next to Loki. "Say something."

_I have nothing to say to you._

"Okay." After that Tony had used the side-table's computer interface to work on some upcoming projects. Loki sat next to her and occasionally made inquiring noises. If it wasn't sensitive material, Tony explained. They passed the day away like that.

* * *

The first morning Tony saw Loki voluntarily sitting at the breakfast table, she stopped with her hand half-way to the coffee pot.

"Hey," she greeted him.

He didn't answer; he never answered '_such asinine greetings'._

Looking around the table, she noticed everyone had something in front of them to eat. Steve was a heaping platter of pancakes and bacon (she didn't even know she had pancakes), Natasha was a grapefruit and kiwi (_where had she gotten the fruit_?—when Tony opened the refrigerator in curiosity, she found it fully stocked, and so was her pantry, _Ah._) Thor had a stack of poptarts and was dipping them in barbeque sauce, _oh, ew_. She couldn't see Clint anywhere, so she looked up and saw he was sitting atop a bookcase, eating a hotpocket.

"Loki, you want anything?" she asked, pouring coffee into her Iron Man souvenir mug ($9.99 at the local bodega).

The whole table looked at her.

_Solid food,_ his expression made the 'duh' implied, or maybe she was just projecting; there was no way he could've been exposed to such inanities of English already.

She grabbed the blender from where it was hidden behind her sentient toaster, it beeped at her approach. ("I'll toast a muffin later." It chirped back at her happily.) "Sorry, still puree for you. Any preference?"

He narrowed his eyes at her in suspicion.

"Okay, dealer's choice."

She grabbed a bunch of supplies from the pantry and refrigerator and spent the next few minutes slicing and dicing and pureeing.

Steve began to talk to her, but she increased the speed of the blender. "Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am." It didn't look like he heard her, but he probably got the jist because he scowled and turned back to his pancakes.

She poured the drink, added a bendy straw from her bar, and handed it to Loki.

He eyed it warily; it was a terrible shade of orange.

"It's not radioactive, that's just the carrots. Trust me."

..

Later, Steve approached her in the common room. "You shouldn't—" he cut himself off.

"I shouldn't what?"

"Loki, he's not—"

She interrupted him, "-Not what?"

"Part of the team," Steve said decisively.

Tony shrugged. No one had told her he was. "Well, he's not a prisoner either." Thor had been very adamant that Odin would not look favorably on any additional punishment Midgard meted out to Loki.

"He's not a friend."

"He's a person, and I can be nice to him if I want. It was just a smoothie, jeez. I'm pretty sure there's something in the Geneva Convention about not starving people. Now go away and be spangly in a room I'm not in."

* * *

Tony found Loki hiding in England—well, SHIELD found Loki hiding in England, and he wasn't hiding, he just wasn't texting back his whereabouts, which still made The Council very nervous. The point was, Tony found herself very carefully landing in Stonehenge, making sure not to disturb the 'leylines' with her 'evil repulsors,' else she make the local Druids very angry.

Loki lay atop one of the fallen monoliths, staring at the starry night sky. He turned to look at her as she approached, clomping in her suit.

She flipped her mask up and stopped when she was almost overhead. "Whatcha doin' here, Loki?"

He went back to looking at the stars.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, then, Tony sighed, rolling her eyes. _Fine_. She—carefully-lay herself on the ground next to Loki's stone and stared at the sky as well.

A hand entered her field of view. It finger spelled _W-H-A-T-R-U_-

"What am I doing? Fury said I couldn't come back without you, so I'll stay with you until you're done. You won't even notice I'm here, honest."

The hand returned to its position atop Loki's chest.

They stayed like that until the sun rose; it was easy for Tony, she fell asleep at one point, only awoken by Loki kicking her shin guard.

She yawned and stretched as far as the suit would allow. "You done?"

Loki nodded.

"You ready for a pickup?"

He nodded again.

"_Pick-up's two miles north of your position. Local council won't let the jet any closer."_ Clint's voice spoke over the tinny speaker in her helmet.

"Jeez, gotta put a bell on you. How long has this com been on?"

_"All night. You snore."_

"You wanna tell me why you ran away?" Tony asked Loki after they'd been walking down the road for ten minutes.

He didn't answer until so long had passed she was sure he'd forgotten the question. _Stitch was created to be evil. He chose to be good._

It took her an embarrassingly long time to realize he was referring to the movie he'd watched with Thor three days ago.

"Yes."

_Is it as easy as that, just choosing?_

Oh, she was so not prepared for this, but she was the only one around, and he looked so desperate, as though the answer had the power to break him.

She took a deep breath. "I think—it's an every day thing." Loki stopped walking to listen; Tony stopped and turned to face him. "Every day, there's a choice between actions. When you're changing from evil to good, it's a conscious decision-which action is evil, which action is good, and doing the good action—but after a while of making those decisions it becomes instinctive, you start choosing good without thinking." She hoped she wasn't babbling, and that she was making sense. "When you don't have to think about it anymore, that's when you're done, you've become good. It's like anything, it takes practice."

Loki seemed to be pondering her answer, but his face was inscrutable, so she had no idea if she had just made things worse.

They continued their walk to the pick-up point.

* * *

Her first day back from DocOck's clutches, it took her a few hours to notice her arc reactor was not one of her spares. To be fair, she had been distracted by the teddy bear sitting alone near the giant vase of flowers from Steve. She knew without reading any card-of which there was none-that the bear was from Loki. It had a green shirt and gold antenna which looked a little too pointy. Gold lettering on the shirt said "Bee well." She smiled at the bear, and moved its arm in a wave. She had the most childish urge to prop it up in her bra so it could see the world from the comfort of her shirt, and surprise the next visitor she got; hopefully Steve, it was always fun making him blush.

When she lifted her shirt, she noticed her arc reactor was not one of her spares. Confused, she left the bear on her stomach and reached in, to detach the reactor so she can see it closer to be sure.

A hand materialized and gripped her arm, stopping it from pulling the reactor any further out of its socket. Loki looked down at her, his eyes wide and pushed her hand down, so the reactor clicked back into place. He took her hand out of her shirt and placed it firmly on her stomach, with a little pat, as if to say 'keep it there.'

"Oh hey, it's cool, I can last a whole thirty seconds before I have to put it back. You don't have to worry."

_I didn't go through the effort of stealing it back from DocOck just so you could take it out again._

"You got it back for me?"

_Of course, no one else was going to._ He sat in the little chair next to her bed.

An unpleasant feeling made itself known. "What did you do?"

He smiled most sinisterly. _I removed it from its place powering DocOck's plane…at 30,000 feet…above the Pacific Ocean._

"Oh, he is gonna love you for that."

Loki laughed through his nose, _good._

* * *

The second time Loki helped her he was more directly involved.

They were in South Dakota, battling the Fiend of the Week (some technogeek who accidentally turned himself into a monster, and didn't that make Bruce uncomfortable) who had the power to turn electronics evil. The rest of the team were pinned down by power pylons fighting with electrified whips. Thor was no help, his mighty thunder-ness made the electronics super powered, so he was working crowd control.

Somehow, (and Tony was going to rebuild her radar, if it was this easy) the self-named Cybernoid snuck up behind her and took control of her suit's systems. Her gauntlets turned towards her chest piece, and no matter how hard she strained she couldn't budge them.

"Guys, a little help here!" she screamed through the comms, but if her teammates even heard her, there was no response.

Her repulsors armed, built up a charge; she watched on her HUD as the charge exceeded safe limits, then her suit tolerance limits.

"Jarvis, shut down, now!"

"_I'm afraid I have no control, Miss Stark."_

From behind her, there was the sound of an ice chipper and a scream that slowly cut off.

The suit finally responded to her movements and she spun around in time to see Loki holding a box that was spewing ice onto a frozen Cybernoid.

Once the villain was a solid block, Loki waved his hands and the box disappeared into thin air.

"Neat trick," she commented, focused more on her HUD flashing red.

"_Repulsors at 1000% charge, I recommend immediate discharge."_

"Might wanna stand back." She waited till Loki had moved to a safe distance, then discharged her weapons at the frozen bad guy.

The villain exploded into icy shards, and the power pylons fighting her team crumbled to the ground inanimate.

"So, nifty power, what was that?"

Tony ripped her helmet off; breathing mechanically controlled air made her a bit uncomfortable right now, that was gonna be a nightmare for later; and looked towards Loki to see his response.

Loki's skin was blue, and he stared at her with red eyes. He watched her warily, hands fisting at his sides.

_Shit! _She sucked in a breath, "Are you okay?"

He tilted his head, and shot her a look of confusion.

"I don't know if you noticed, but you're kinda blue."

He took a deep breath, and signed, _It is_, he sneered,_ my natural_ _form._

Tony remembered a conversation from the helicarrier, oh so long ago:

(_"He killed eighty people in two days."_

_ "He is adopted.")_

Loki misread her silence, _if it makes you uncomfortable, it should wear off soon._

She could tell he needed her acceptance, so she shrugged exaggeratedly to let the suit convey the motions. "One of my friends turns into a giant green rage monster, and now my other friend turns into a blue ice-man, it's all cool."

* * *

Sitting in her underground garage, Tony reviews all the interactions she's had with Loki over the past six months. The gifts, the flirtations, the content feeling whenever he's near…

She even remembers he's allergic to paprika; she could never do that with Pepper. "Holy crap, I'm in love with Loki," and she's pretty sure he's in love with her too.

"Well, that's fortunate," says a man behind her, in a voice she hasn't heard in months.

"Loki!" She turns in the seat, and he's leaning against her workbench. He wears his blue skin, in his green leathers and armor, with a crown of icicles on his head. His stitches are gone, though there are still twelve little holes framing his lips. Tony jumps over the seat back and approaches him, raises her hand to touch, but flinches back, "How did you—"

He stands straight. "The throne of Jotunheim still has some powers that rival those of the Allfathers."

"The throne?" Obviously, Loki is no longer bound by his punishment. The words she spat at Bruce earlier,_ "You think he's still gonna be playing happy families with us…" _echo in her mind. Has Loki turned evil right when she learns she loves him? Is he gonna be just another person to leave her? "So, you're…what? King of Jotunheim now?"

"I've been king for nearly two years, I just finally won the throne for my own."

Her thoughts are running along two tracks, _please don't be evil again, _and _oh god, he's evil again._

"Why?"

"Because I am burdened with glorious purpose." He smiles sweetly. "I must save the universe. Win the woman I love. Prove to Odin I am a changed man."

"The woman you love?"

"Yes. She flies around in a gaudy red suit, perhaps you've heard of her?"


	9. Chapter 9

**IN WHICH THERE IS A NEW KING, A PLAN IS MADE, STEVE DISAPPOINTS, COULSON PROPOSES, AND BRUCE MOONLIGHTS AS TONY'S PSYCHIATRIST**

* * *

Later, after the team startles at Loki's new regality (he changes from his blue skin after it makes everyone uncomfortable), after explanations are given (at metaphorical arrow-point), an emergency meeting is called. Coulson attends in person. Up in the meeting room, Loki presides over the discussion. "You-know-who is going to sneak into Asgard, steal the tesseract, and come here, for the six billion people he can use as a personal army in his mission to control the universe."

Bruce's eyebrows rise, "you-know-who?"

"Who?" Steve asks in confusion.

"Saying his name brings his sight to bear on the speaker," Loki explains.

On the vidlink, Fury scowls. "And you know this how?"

"I spoke to my subjects," Loki smiles, it is not a pleasant smile. "Those who were affected by his teachings were most informative."

"How exactly do you have subjects?" Clint demands.

"My father Laufey,-"

Thor smacks the table. Tony sees everyone jump in surprise. "Odin is your father."

"My _sire_," Loki concedes, "was king of Jotunheim, he… _died_ many years ago. As first-born, I am king."

Coulson tilts his head. "You killed him."

Loki huffs, goodnaturedly, "as I said, he died."

"So what's the plan?" Bruce asks, "you do have a plan don't you? Otherwise why come back."

Steve gestures and scoffs, "we're not seriously gonna listen to a plan from him?"

Fury gives Steve a look that to Tony seems almost disappointed. "We can certainly _listen_, whether we follow this plan is another matter."

"The plan is this…there is an object in Odin's vault, which can be used to direct travel." Loki paces as he speaks. "We know You-Know-Who is coming here, I suggest we use the Infinity Gauntlet to direct his arrival to a non-populated area and meet him in combat. I can pledge soldiers from Jotunheim, if Midgard can supply the weaponry."

Thor's booming laugh sounds scornful. "You expect Odin to just give the Gauntlet away for nothing. He does not make gifts lightly, especially not of such a powerful object."

"Brother dear, not a gift, a loan. And not for nothing." Loki stops his pacing, stares Thor in the eyes. "I bid you tell Odin, the king of Jotunheim wishes to broker peace with Asgard, let us end the bitter stalemate, and save Midgard and the whole of the universe in the process."

Thor looks impressed, and the whole table is silent, trying to absorb Loki's offer.

Tony sees a flaw in Loki's plan. "Last time Thor asked for Odin's help, we got nothing. What makes you think Odin's gonna listen to you now?"

"I am a king now, Odin must listen to a fellow king; such is the law of the realms. With his wisdom, Odin will take this bargain; he knows the threat is real and imminent."

"Just how imminent?" Fury asks.

Loki turns to face the screen. "My sources tell me no more than a month shall pass before He arrives on Midgard."

"And how many soldiers are you pledging in this plan of yours?"

"I have an army."

* * *

The meeting ends with Thor once again on a mission to seek help from Odin. As the team file out of the room, Tony sees Loki approach Coulson, who remains at the table, speaking with Fury. Loki's hand barely brushes against the agent's arm before Clint unholsters his gun and points it at the king.

"Whoa!" Steve shouts. "What the heck?"

Tony instinctively edges closer to Loki; prepared to push him out of the line of fire.

Loki raises his hands, "I was merely going to ask Coulson to speak in private with Fury and myself."

"Last time you spoke with Coulson, you killed him!" Clint shouts.

"And I brought him back, what does that tell you?"

"Barton, stand down!" Fury commands.

Clint glances at Fury, his gun never wavering. "How can you just—"

"—Clint…" Natasha steps between Clint's gun and its target. She rests her hand over Clint's on the gun grip.

An unspoken conversation happens between the two master assassins. Finally, Clint holsters his weapon and lets Natasha lead him out of the room.

Tony breathes a sigh of relief. Loki turns to her.

"Were you worried for me?"

She nods. "Little bit."

"Thank you." Loki bends down and kisses her. In the background, Fury's eyebrows raise.

Tony stares at him for a second; a cheek kiss is not one she's used to getting from people. It makes her feel warm and fuzzy in her head.

* * *

The fuzzy feeling leaves when Steve manhandles her (gently), once they've left Loki to speak in private. He drags her to a secluded spot behind some aluminum sculpture Pepper once bought, (Tony thinks it's called _Christmas Tree Descending Staircase_, and if it's not, it should be).

She yanks her hand out of his grip. "Um, rude much?"

"What going on between you and Loki?" Steve demands.

Tony doesn't realize until it's too late, but she's crossed her arms defensively. "Were you not there at breakfast? I love him."

His jaw clenches. "I've kept quiet these past months because I thought he would serve his punishment and leave. Without his lies and magic I thought he'd be harmless, but he's still managed to compromise you."

"I'm not _compromised_," she scoffs. She's not, is she? She doesn't feel as though she's been _unmade_ as Clint calls it.

Steve stares her in her eyes. "Are you really the best judge of that? You can't see him for what he truly is."

"And what is he?"

"A very bad man," he states definitively.

Wow, Tony had never thought Steve would get added to her mental list of _People Who Have Disappointed Tony Stark_; top of the list being Howard of course. "I'm sorry you feel that way—wait, no, no I'm not-Everyone deserves a second chance, and if you can't see that, as leader of our little Island of Misfit Superheroes, then maybe you shouldn't _be_ our leader anymore."

She stalks away, intent on getting as far from Steve as possible.

* * *

A few hours later, she's tinkering with the latest version of her suit. The Mark X is _supposed_ to be space-worthy, but the seals keep failing in her vacuum chamber.

She manipulates the hologram of the suit, studying an exploded view of the micro-fissures that keep opening in the joints. There's no way she is using NASA's accordion-type sleeves if she can help it.

Her music cuts off and Jarvis says, "_Agent Coulson requests your presence in the meeting room."_

"Wasn't I just there?"

_"I gather it's a different topic this time"_

"Awesome," her tone opposes her claim. She scrubs through her hair, feeling uncharacteristically tired. She just slept last night; she should be good for days more than this. "Save my work."

"_Of course."_

On her way out, she grabs a Monster energy drink from her mini-fridge.

* * *

"So what's up." She sips her drink as she enters the room. Only Loki and Coulson are in the room, Fury's video connection has been shut off.

Coulson glances up from where he and Loki are typing a document on the table's interface. "You're marrying Loki."

"What!" she inhales her drink and spends the next minute coughing to clear her lungs.

Loki smiles encouragingly. "You will make a splendid queen, do not worry."

Tony collapses into a seat at the far end of the table, away from the crazy. "That's not the bit I was focused on, but thank you for the additional implication that I hadn't even noticed."

"It's either you, or Agent Romanoff," Coulson informs her, "and we felt you would be the better option."

Her laugh is slightly hysterical. "Yeah, I don't think she's forgiven the 'mewling quim' insult, yet."

Loki smiles sheepishly. "I tried complimenting her on the masterful interrogation she performed but—"

"Agen-_Phil_, not to cast aspersions on the recently no-longer-deceased, but are you sure you came back _right_?"

"Whether or not Odin sees fit to grace us with his help," Coulson begins, "Loki has promised to assist Earth in the coming troubles. Director Fury believes a formal union between the two worlds will also prevent any future…_incidents_."

Tony stares. There are no words. Only when she makes the situation impersonal does she finds some, "Loki, please don't take this the wrong way, but how would a marriage stop you from going bag-of-cats crazy…again?"

Loki stands and sits next to her. He holds her hand, caressing her calloused and scarred fingers. "I would never destroy my children's homeworld," he says comfortingly.

She rips her hand out of his, and stands in shock. "Children! Jesu-my-I." A few more disjointed sounds come out as different thoughts rush through her mind.

"Of course. Our union would be most fruitful."

"NO!" She points at Loki.

"NO!" She points at Coulson.

As she leaves, slamming the door closed, she hears Coulson say, "That went well."

* * *

Tony slams through the first door she notices; it's the emergency stairwell. Before she realizes it, she's descended four floors and is headed to the Research and Development section of Avenger's Tower. She finds Bruce in his labs, surrounded by plexi-screens and holo-displays.

He looks up from an equation scrolling across his desk. "What, right now?" Bruce asks, able to interpret the noises that came out of her mouth, which might have been words along the lines of "OhmygodI'."

She giggles hysterically.

He dismisses the equations and folds his glasses, setting them on his desk. "Maybe you should sit down."

She sits and looks at Bruce.

"I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong."

Tony sprawls in her chair, legs bouncing. "SHIELD wants me to marry Loki."

Bruce nods, "that's sudden."

"Be my maid of honor?" she asks flippantly.

"If you want," he smiles encouragingly. "But that's not what you came down here for."

She fidgets in her chair, shifting her weight, glancing about at all the oh-so-interesting formulas and projects displayed around the room.

Finally she blurts out, "I just discovered I loved him, _this morning_, now he's talking marriage, and queen-dom, and children—which he already has like, six of, some not even human-shaped, and there's nothing wrong with that, but how do I mother a snake?—what if they don't like me?—I'm not ready to be a step-mother, let alone a mother-mother—I can't—I can't do this." Her final words are slightly smothered because at some point she rested her head in despair on Bruce's desk.

"Does SHIELD want you to marry him, or does Loki want you to marry him?"

She looks up at him. "Well, Phil just sort of told me I was marrying him."

"Well, maybe you and Loki should talk, and figure out what you both want, without SHIELD's interference."


	10. Chapter 10

**IN WHICH LOKI EXPLAINS AGAIN, PROMISES ARE MADE, AND THERE IS A FIELD TRIP TO ASGARD**

* * *

A day later, Tony is not hiding. She's not. There's a very important business deal in Dubai that in no way could have been achieved over a video conference. While there, she figures _what the hell_, and has Virgil—Terrance—Derek (god, why can't she remember his name? even his contact is listed as _Not-Pepper_ in her phone) call up the 'old crowd' and throws a party in her house, the likes of which hasn't been seen in years.

It's a disaster, but only on a personal level. None of the lovely eye-candy of either gender attracts her attention, and the alcohol makes her depressive. Around 11 p.m, she gets tired of all the music and chatter and smoozing and abandons the party and the house. Let the guests do whatever they want, it doesn't matter.

She's running away from what matters; and she's self-aware enough to know it.

* * *

Morning finds her suited up, eating ka-babs on top of the Burj Kalifa. She sits on the waist-high wall, feet swinging against the plaster. This high up, there's a strong breeze filling her ears, so she doesn't know Loki's arrived until he speaks to her.

"The green one tells me I may have come on too strongly."

There must be magic involved in this conversation, because neither of them has to shout to be heard over the wind. She twists in her seat so she's no longer sat facing the city. "Good old Bruce." She licks her fingers and balances her helmet atop her takeaway box so the wind won't catch her food.

Loki makes a groany-whining sound.

"_Oh_, Jolly Green huh?" she winces in sympathy. The Hulk can be very forceful when faced with stupidity.

"I did not mean to imply that I demanded children from you—but, I don't not want them either…I—" he stops, collects himself, sits next to her. "There is no pressure."

She grins at his small bit of babbling. It's always nice to know other people natter too when discussing life-alerting things. "We haven't even had a proper date yet, and already we're gonna get married?"

"That was Fury's idea," Loki says forcefully. "He seemed on the verge of ecstasy when he suggested it."

Tony considers it… Queen Tony, Queen Antonia… a royal wedding to rival William and Kate's. "He just wants to fob me off on someone else's planet," she scoffs. "Anyway, isn't it an ice planet, how would I live there?"

Loki glances away. "As ruler, any duties could be passed to a regent. I find myself favoring that option," he glances back to her, "as I am inordinately fond of this realm." She has gotten quite good at understanding his unspoken communication, and the meaning is clear, _I am inordinately fond of you._

The moment becomes heavy and uncomfortable. Tony can feel a glib comment rising; she sees one way the conversation can go: she'll make a joke, and they'll laugh; but it would only be delaying the inevitable.

She forces herself to respond seriously. "I like you, a lot." Her suit creaks loudly as she shifts; god she needs to move, pace, fidget, do something…anything but have Loki's full attention. But, she's in her suit, on the roof of the tallest building in the world, trapped… "You are one of the few people I can count on to never disappoint me." Her nervous energy is too much and she paces the rooftop. "How crazy is that? I barely know you! You tried to DESTROY my world, you KILLED people! You're the god of LIES, and I TRUST YOU!" She finds herself leaning against the roof-access door, and slides down it to sit in the gravel. "Was Steve right? Did you do something to me?"

He moves and sits cross-legged in front of her. "I did nothing but spend time with you. You were nice to me, with no ulterior motives. The others only tolerated my presence in the knowledge that a year of punishment meant a year of docility; knowing that when I was freed, I would return to my villainous ways and they would have another chance to destroy me."

"But you haven't."

"Every day I am good is another day they must simmer in their own hatred and do nothing, impotent against me." Loki grins slightly derangedly. "It brings me great pleasure to subvert their expectations and control their behavior thusly."

_Uh-oh, your crazy's showing_, Tony doesn't voice her thought, but he must see it on her face, because his smile fades, and he looks down and around sheepishly.

"I-uh, apologize." He's shutting down, placing shields around his inner self.

"No, no-" she rushes to fix her blunder, "-it's not that—" she grabs one of his hands. "We have a word for that, _schadenfreude_, it means taking pleasure from someone else's misery. You don't have to hide that bit of yourself, it's not craziness, it's part of human nature."

"But I am not human."

"Okay, so it's part of _sentient_ nature."

Loki shifts so they are sat side by side, hands held between them.

* * *

They sit there, listening to the wind, looking out at the tiny skyscrapers around them. Then…

"You have a man's hand." He says surprised, apropos of nothing.

He holds her left hand in both of his, studying her palm and the various chemical, electrical, and mechanical scars on her fingers. He's focused so intently, she is sure he can tell where every mark came from.

Tony turns to look at him. "Um…"

"Sorry, that was meant to be a compliment."

"How is that meant to be a compliment?" she forces her tone to convey just curiosity and no aggression.

"You are not a simpering woman concerned only for her social needs. You fight, and you better the world around you. If you cannot find a solution to a problem, you build one, out of scraps." Admiration shone through his eyes. "You fight against your realm's expectations by doing a man's work."

"So you're complimenting me on my challenging nature."

"Yes. I ask that you never let me change you. For you will have lost a vital spark, and I would have lost my love for you."

She entwines their fingers. "If we're going to make this work, I'm going to ask something a lot harder of you, than you did of me."

He makes an inquiring noise.

"As long as I'm with you, you can't go back to being a villain. No—think hard on this. Right now, saying it is easy... But, one day, something is going to happen, and it will be so effortless to fall back onto the easy solution—you have to promise, that if we're going to be together, you have to do the right thing, even if it's the hard thing."

He stares out into the distance, rubbing his thumb back and forth against her hand.

"I promise," he says, eventually. "But I will need you to warn me in such times, for I fear I would not recognize it were it to come upon me."

The moment is shattered quite abruptly by the door opening from behind them. Loki catches himself, but Tony is not so lucky and lands on her back.

"This is _sweet_ and all," Clint's emphasis says he believes otherwise, "but you really need to answer your comms," she sees him cross his arms. "Fury's been requesting your presence for over an hour."

She scrambles to her feet, the suit hampering her slightly. "How did you even get up here?" She should really not be surprised at the places Hawkeye can get to, but still…

Clint blinks at her. "I took the elevator." _Oh, right._

Loki retrieves her helmet, and her food. "Thor has returned?"

"He says he has a message from Odin that only _King Loki_ can hear." He is very careful only to speak to Tony, as though Loki didn't exist. "Jet's waiting to take us to the heli-carrier."

* * *

Whatever the message is, Loki doesn't say. But, he does request that a team come with him as he negotiates with Odin in Asgard.

* * *

Asgard is…insane. That's the only word Tony can come up with upon arrival; what other reason could there be for a giant rainbow bridge suspended over a waterfall having no _safety railings_, haven't these people ever heard of OSHA?

The negotiating party consists of her, Loki, Fury and Coulson. Thor is there as well, as their escort. The other Avengers 'elected' to stay on Earth just in case.

Tony immediately gets the impression Odin is not pleased with her presence. Fury and Coulson are required because they represent Midgard, and Loki is required because he represents Jotunheim.

Tony is superfluous to requirements, a fact Odin makes abundantly clear when he asks Loki, "why have you brought this _mortal woman_?" he says 'mortal' the way someone would say 'roadkill' at a Michelin rated restaurant.

Loki holds her gauntleted hand (he told her to wear her armor as a show of strength; their hosts do not look impressed), and replies. "She is to be the new Jotun queen."

She didn't think she would find a more intimidating one-eyed glare than Fury's, but Odin's is much more intimidating. She doesn't know the protocol for addressing an Asgard king, so she just smiles slightly.

Odin says nothing, but gives the impression he finds her wanting.

This is fine with her, because she finds him wanting too. From the myths and what little Loki has told her, Odin beat Howard for the Crappy Father Award by a ginormous margin.


	11. Chapter 11

**IN WHICH THE AUTHOR TRIES SO HARD NOT TO WRITE LIKE HUNGER GAMES OR ASOIAF OR TWILIGHT *SHUDDER*, ALSO FOOD HAPPENS, AND NEGOTIATIONS ARE ONGOING**

* * *

The negotiations won't be till tomorrow. Today, there is to be a feast in honor of the visit from some of Midgard's greatest warriors. One of Thor's friends, who strongly reminds Tony of Gimli from _Lord of the Rings,_ looks pleased with the announcement; while Thor's lady friend is quite displeased with everything. Tony's sure she heard all their names, but can't remember them.

A pretty maidservant leads Tony to a set of guest rooms; everyone's got a set; her's has a nice view of the Bifrost Bridge and the stars beyond.

"Dinner is in three hours," the maid says, bowing out of the room.

There is a young man standing by the dressing screen. "Oh, um, who are you?" Tony asks.

"I am Bran, the Lady Sif's valet." Bran replies.

When no more information is forthcoming, Tony asks. "What are you doing here?"

"I am to assist in the removal of your armor."

"You can go and tell Lady Sif I won't be needing an armor-helper. It comes off by itself."

Bran nods, "yes ma'am," and leaves.

* * *

Tony doesn't think she's supposed to arrive at dinner in her armor, so it's a good thing she brought extra clothes. However, the business suit (the one she wears when she needs to convince the other shareholders that she _is too_ competent) she brought is unnecessary, for a group of maidservants arrive and proceed to make her presentable.

One maid, Cherith, brings out a selection of dresses with rich trims and fussy details, the matching shoes are flimsy and tall. Her first thought is _my god those are impractical._ Her second thought is _shit, I should have shaved my legs._

Two other maidservants solve that problem with a paste Tony prays isn't Asgard's version of hotwax. Luckily, it rinses off, so it's Asgard's version of Nair.

She quickly notices all the dresses share a specific color scheme. When asked, Cherith replies, "Of course, to compliment your companion."

Her nails are cleaned and buffed. "That's a losing battle. They'll be dirty in an hour." Tony comments. She can never keep her nails clean.

The maids tut over her hair, it's so short they can't do anything with it. Tony is glad they can't use all those combs and pins she saw one of them bring in, some of them look painful.

When the maids are done prettifying her, it's almost time for dinner. A royal guard, who she suspects was outside her rooms this entire time, leads her through pristine gilded walkways towards the Banquet Hall. Her appearance causes more than one look from passerby, though not because she is a foreigner. She's carrying her shoes in her hands, because there is no way she is risking breaking an ankle until she has to.

The guard takes her to an antechamber where the rest of her party waits. Fury and Coulson sit around a lit brazier, while Thor and Loki stare out a window. Both brothers are in their full regalia, Loki wearing his Crown of Perpetual Icicles, while Thor wears—

"_Oh_, chicken." Everyone stares at her outburst. "I see what you mean," she tells Loki as she approaches him. "Here," she hands him her shoes. "Stand still." She holds his shoulder for balance as she puts on her shoes, first one foot then the other.

The shoes make her wobble alarmingly. "Oh, that's gonna be fun. Also, why am I the only one who got pimped out?" Fury and Coulson both wear the exact outfit in which they arrived.

She gets no answer, for at that moment a male servant in a poufy hat arrives and leads them into the Banquet Hall.

* * *

After some guy blows a golden horn that looks like a vuvuzuela, but sounds like a trumpet, he shouts to the assembled masses "Announcing the joint delegation from Midgard and Jotunheim!"

Every face turns to look at them; rows upon rows of people, seated at tables stretching towards a high table, where Odin and his wife sit, presiding.

Loki holds out his arm and Tony takes it. She lets him lead her to _oh deargod_ the high table. The others sit at an empty table near them. He must sense her trepidation, or maybe he just feels the deathgrip she has on his arm, because he says, "Relax, you'll do fine." Servants pull out the chairs next to Queen Frigga, and they sit; her sandwiched between Loki and his mother.

Odin makes a small speech about welcoming Asgard's guests, and the hopes of a fruitful negotiation and ushering in a new era of prosperity for the nine realms.

Then food happens.

Food happens in the same way a hurricane happens, with noise and destruction of property. Servant after servant carrying tray after tray of food. Thousands of cutlery against thousands of plates. There's conversations, and laughter. Maids weave through the crowd, sometimes being waylaid by someone for some private attention.

The food is never ending; trays of whole animals (there's deer and pigs and rabbits and fish and bilgsnipe) just laid out on the tables for anyone to cut off a piece; there's giant tureens of gravy and mountains of mashed potatoes. Piles of vegetables and never ending mead and wine.

The high table is a little more civilized. The King and Queen, through no form of signal Tony can see, signal their servants, and food is brought to them. Loki next to her does the same, only he's able to signal his servant to get Tony food too.

"How are you doing that?"

"I grew up here," he answers as though it explains everything. It does.

Eventually, after a few hours of eating, and quaffing, and singing; Loki begs the king's pardon, and he and Tony leave the hall. The rest of the populous show no sign of stopping anytime soon.

Loki leads her back to her rooms, holding tight as she loses balance more than once. She may have had too much mead, though she tried to be responsible about it.

* * *

The next morning, she wakes when a bright beam of sunlight cuts across her face.

"Jarvis! Turn off the sun!" she cries out before she remembers where she is. She opens her eyes to find a random maidservant laying out clothes. "Go away," she mumbles into her pillow. "Need more sleep."

"Begging you pardon, my lady, but King Loki of Jotunheim requests your presence at breakfast."

Tony sits up in bed, the sheets falling to her waist. "Who made me naked? Never mind." When she goes to the bathroom, there are more maids filling the tub with water _my god _by the bucket full. There's an area behind a screen that looks like it's toilet related; at least she hopes it's toilet related, because that's where she goes. When she's done, a maid removes the chamber pot and replaces it with an empty one.

"That's gross."

They ignore her.

Then they bathe her, quickly, and dress her in a diaphanous-type shift thing that goes to her knees; her shoes are thankfully sandals.

The same guard as before leads her to wherever it is she's supposed to eat breakfast.

"Have you people never heard of modern plumbing?" This is not the first thing she says as she enters the room, _thank the lord, _for Loki is breaking fast with his mother, and that would have made a terrible first impression. First, Tony sits at her place-setting, smiles at Frigga, and eats the fruit-thing the servant places in front of her. It's only when Frigga leaves to attend her weaving, (_seriously?_), that Tony whispers her question furiously to Loki.

Loki looks at her as though she were crazy. "Why would we contaminate fresh water with waste?"

They stare at each other for a moment, until, "soooo, negotiations, anything I should know?"

* * *

_Don't make wisecracks._ Since that's all she knows how to do, according to _oh so many_ people, Tony mostly keeps quiet.

Vuvuzuela-man is back, this time announcing their arrival to the council chamber. Odin sits at the head of a long table, lined on either side by various old guys; Tony may not know their names, but she knows their ilk. They remind her of her fellow shareholders, more concerned with how decisions will affect themselves, while pretending to care about how those decisions will affect the consumer…

Loki, in his blue skin, sits at the opposite end, and she, with the others, sit flanking him.

First there are introductions, all along the lines of OldGuy, son of OlderGuy, who slew the mighty two-headed beast of SomeRealm…half of the councilmen are missing some bit of themselves—Tyr is missing a hand; Grune, an ear…It must be a requirement, to rule Asgard…lose an arm, gain a council seat.

Tony tunes out at Carter, son of Rice.

The council chamber sits in the tallest spire of Asgard, and has more window than wall. From where she sits, Tony can see out across the entirety of the realm, from the inner city to the outlying villages. The land stretches out and out, but never curves down into the horizon. Reading about flat worlds and working out the physics of such is fun and all, but actually standing on a flat world is very _very_ disconcerting. The sky must be much thinner here than on Earth, because she can see stars and nebulas in the blue sky.

It's absolutely beautiful. It's absolutely terrifying. The scientist in her screams about gravity and atmosphere and how none of this should work.

Her traitorous brain brings up the last time she was in space, she almost died, and she looks down to the table on the verge of panic. Her hands hurt, and she realizes she has them clenched in her lap.

Loki's voice breaks through to her and she pays attention to the conversation in time to hear,

"…Tony destroyed the Chitauri base using an atomic missile. As Heimdall no doubt informs you, Midgard has thousands more of these weapons. Jotunheim has the soldiers, Midgard has the weapons, but we will need more to defeat the forces of Thanos. We need the Infinity Gauntlet."

Odin's councilmen erupt into furor.

"How can we trust these…"

"…a jotun traitor…"

"Kingslayers have no place…"

Loki sits there, listening to their barbs. His red eyes give him an air of menace, but Tony can see the tiny muscle movements of someone trying to show it doesn't hurt, of someone who only _thinks_ they've been hurt too many times to feel it anymore. Tony's had to use that same mask often in her life. His hands rest on the table, not curling into fists in a way that's forced. She wants to rest her hand in his, give him something to hold, as his own brother does not rise in defense of him. Maybe Loki has the truth of it, and Thor has deluded himself into believing they are brothers.

"…always a menace…"

"He wears a crown when he should have earned the axe."

"He has already bewitched two realms; shall we give him a third?"

"Silence." The command is soft, but the council falls quiet at Odin's word. "And who will wield my Gauntlet?" he asks. "You? The Gauntlet is quite discerning in whom it lets have power."

Loki smiles mirthlessly. "Only the righteous? I'm well aware. Coulson will wield it."

Tony is extremely surprised at this suggestion as is Thor, going by his expression. Phil and Fury look serene, _almost like they were expecting this announcement._

"A tiny mortal?" Odin says the question politely, but Tony can tell he wants to scoff.

"Coulson died in battle, and has returned from Valhalla in defense of his realm. Only the mightiest warriors indeed do not allow defeat even from death."

_Nice spin._ Tony's amazed at the level of obfuscation Loki employs. Everything he said is true, and yet…

"You were the one who slew him." Odin's expression is pained.

"Yes—he was defending their fortress. Thus he was slain in battle. Who provided death's stroke is of no consequence. The Infinity Gauntlet will respond to his commands."

Odin squeezes his eye shut. It's obvious he has had to deal with these types of conversations with Loki before.

A slimy thought races through Tony's brain. What if this was nothing more than a long game? The Chitauri, the Battle of Manhattan—what if it was all so Loki could kill Coulson and bring him back as some sort of catspaw to control the Gauntlet? Is this alliance just another way for Loki to subjugate the masses and build his monument to the skies?

Is there even an army coming? Is Thanos real? They've had no independent confirmation of his threat.

Is she the only one who has thought of this? She looks to Fury and Coulson, who are busy answering Tyr's question. Could they be enchanted, if they are, why isn't she?


End file.
